Wherein Mr. Ralph Nickleby is visited by Persons with whom the Reader has
been already made acquainted
‘What a demnition long time you have kept me ringing at this confounded
old cracked tea-kettle of a bell, every tinkle of which is enough to
throw a strong man into blue convulsions, upon my life and soul, oh
demmit,’--said Mr. Mantalini to Newman Noggs, scraping his boots, as he
spoke, on Ralph Nickleby’s scraper.
‘I didn’t hear the bell more than once,’ replied Newman.
‘Then you are most immensely and outr-i-geously deaf,’ said Mr
Mantalini, ‘as deaf as a demnition post.’
Mr. Mantalini had got by this time into the passage, and was making his
way to the door of Ralph’s office with very little ceremony, when Newman
interposed his body; and hinting that Mr. Nickleby was unwilling to be
disturbed, inquired whether the client’s business was of a pressing
nature.
‘It is most demnebly particular,’ said Mr. Mantalini. ‘It is to melt some
scraps of dirty paper into bright, shining, chinking, tinkling, demd
mint sauce.’
Newman uttered a significant grunt, and taking Mr. Mantalini’s proffered
card, limped with it into his master’s office. As he thrust his head in
at the door, he saw that Ralph had resumed the thoughtful posture into
which he had fallen after perusing his nephew’s letter, and that he
seemed to have been reading it again, as he once more held it open in
his hand. The glance was but momentary, for Ralph, being disturbed,
turned to demand the cause of the interruption.
As Newman stated it, the cause himself swaggered into the room, and
grasping Ralph’s horny hand with uncommon affection, vowed that he had
never seen him looking so well in all his life.
‘There is quite a bloom upon your demd countenance,’ said Mr. Mantalini,
seating himself unbidden, and arranging his hair and whiskers. ‘You look
quite juvenile and jolly, demmit!’
‘We are alone,’ returned Ralph, tartly. ‘What do you want with me?’
‘Good!’ cried Mr. Mantalini, displaying his teeth. ‘What did I want! Yes.
Ha, ha! Very good. WHAT did I want. Ha, ha. Oh dem!’
‘What DO you want, man?’ demanded Ralph, sternly.
‘Demnition discount,’ returned Mr. Mantalini, with a grin, and shaking
his head waggishly.
‘Money is scarce,’ said Ralph.
‘Demd scarce, or I shouldn’t want it,’ interrupted Mr. Mantalini.
‘The times are bad, and one scarcely knows whom to trust,’ continued
Ralph. ‘I don’t want to do business just now, in fact I would rather
not; but as you are a friend--how many bills have you there?’
‘Two,’ returned Mr. Mantalini.
‘What is the gross amount?’
‘Demd trifling--five-and-seventy.’
‘And the dates?’
‘Two months, and four.’
‘I’ll do them for you--mind, for YOU; I wouldn’t for many people--for
five-and-twenty pounds,’ said Ralph, deliberately.
‘Oh demmit!’ cried Mr. Mantalini, whose face lengthened considerably at
this handsome proposal.
‘Why, that leaves you fifty,’ retorted Ralph. ‘What would you have? Let
me see the names.’
‘You are so demd hard, Nickleby,’ remonstrated Mr. Mantalini.
‘Let me see the names,’ replied Ralph, impatiently extending his hand
for the bills. ‘Well! They are not sure, but they are safe enough. Do
you consent to the terms, and will you take the money? I don’t want you
to do so. I would rather you didn’t.’
‘Demmit, Nickleby, can’t you--’ began Mr. Mantalini.
‘No,’ replied Ralph, interrupting him. ‘I can’t. Will you take the
money--down, mind; no delay, no going into the city and pretending to
negotiate with some other party who has no existence, and never had. Is
it a bargain, or is it not?’
Ralph pushed some papers from him as he spoke, and carelessly rattled
his cash-box, as though by mere accident. The sound was too much for Mr
Mantalini. He closed the bargain directly it reached his ears, and Ralph
told the money out upon the table.
He had scarcely done so, and Mr. Mantalini had not yet gathered it all
up, when a ring was heard at the bell, and immediately afterwards Newman
ushered in no less a person than Madame Mantalini, at sight of whom Mr
Mantalini evinced considerable discomposure, and swept the cash into his
pocket with remarkable alacrity.
‘Oh, you ARE here,’ said Madame Mantalini, tossing her head.
‘Yes, my life and soul, I am,’ replied her husband, dropping on his
knees, and pouncing with kitten-like playfulness upon a stray sovereign.
‘I am here, my soul’s delight, upon Tom Tiddler’s ground, picking up the
demnition gold and silver.’
‘I am ashamed of you,’ said Madame Mantalini, with much indignation.
‘Ashamed--of ME, my joy? It knows it is talking demd charming sweetness,
but naughty fibs,’ returned Mr. Mantalini. ‘It knows it is not ashamed of
its own popolorum tibby.’
Whatever were the circumstances which had led to such a result,
it certainly appeared as though the popolorum tibby had rather
miscalculated, for the nonce, the extent of his lady’s affection. Madame
Mantalini only looked scornful in reply; and, turning to Ralph, begged
him to excuse her intrusion.
‘Which is entirely attributable,’ said Madame, ‘to the gross misconduct
and most improper behaviour of Mr. Mantalini.’
‘Of me, my essential juice of pineapple!’
‘Of you,’ returned his wife. ‘But I will not allow it. I will not submit
to be ruined by the extravagance and profligacy of any man. I call Mr
Nickleby to witness the course I intend to pursue with you.’
‘Pray don’t call me to witness anything, ma’am,’ said Ralph. ‘Settle it
between yourselves, settle it between yourselves.’
‘No, but I must beg you as a favour,’ said Madame Mantalini, ‘to hear
me give him notice of what it is my fixed intention to do--my fixed
intention, sir,’ repeated Madame Mantalini, darting an angry look at her
husband.
‘Will she call me “Sir”?’ cried Mantalini. ‘Me who dote upon her with
the demdest ardour! She, who coils her fascinations round me like a pure
angelic rattlesnake! It will be all up with my feelings; she will throw
me into a demd state.’
‘Don’t talk of feelings, sir,’ rejoined Madame Mantalini, seating
herself, and turning her back upon him. ‘You don’t consider mine.’
‘I do not consider yours, my soul!’ exclaimed Mr. Mantalini.
‘No,’ replied his wife.
And notwithstanding various blandishments on the part of Mr. Mantalini,
Madame Mantalini still said no, and said it too with such determined and
resolute ill-temper, that Mr. Mantalini was clearly taken aback.
‘His extravagance, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Madame Mantalini, addressing
herself to Ralph, who leant against his easy-chair with his hands behind
him, and regarded the amiable couple with a smile of the supremest and
most unmitigated contempt,--‘his extravagance is beyond all bounds.’
‘I should scarcely have supposed it,’ answered Ralph, sarcastically.
‘I assure you, Mr. Nickleby, however, that it is,’ returned Madame
Mantalini. ‘It makes me miserable! I am under constant apprehensions,
and in constant difficulty. And even this,’ said Madame Mantalini,
wiping her eyes, ‘is not the worst. He took some papers of value out of
my desk this morning without asking my permission.’
Mr. Mantalini groaned slightly, and buttoned his trousers pocket.
‘I am obliged,’ continued Madame Mantalini, ‘since our late misfortunes,
to pay Miss Knag a great deal of money for having her name in the
business, and I really cannot afford to encourage him in all his
wastefulness. As I have no doubt that he came straight here, Mr
Nickleby, to convert the papers I have spoken of, into money, and as you
have assisted us very often before, and are very much connected with us
in this kind of matters, I wish you to know the determination at which
his conduct has compelled me to arrive.’
Mr. Mantalini groaned once more from behind his wife’s bonnet, and
fitting a sovereign into one of his eyes, winked with the other at
Ralph. Having achieved this performance with great dexterity, he whipped
the coin into his pocket, and groaned again with increased penitence.
‘I have made up my mind,’ said Madame Mantalini, as tokens of impatience
manifested themselves in Ralph’s countenance, ‘to allowance him.’
‘To do that, my joy?’ inquired Mr. Mantalini, who did not seem to have
caught the words.
‘To put him,’ said Madame Mantalini, looking at Ralph, and prudently
abstaining from the slightest glance at her husband, lest his many
graces should induce her to falter in her resolution, ‘to put him upon a
fixed allowance; and I say that if he has a hundred and twenty pounds
a year for his clothes and pocket-money, he may consider himself a very
fortunate man.’
Mr. Mantalini waited, with much decorum, to hear the amount of the
proposed stipend, but when it reached his ears, he cast his hat and cane
upon the floor, and drawing out his pocket-handkerchief, gave vent to
his feelings in a dismal moan.
‘Demnition!’ cried Mr. Mantalini, suddenly skipping out of his chair,
and as suddenly skipping into it again, to the great discomposure of his
lady’s nerves. ‘But no. It is a demd horrid dream. It is not reality.
No!’
Comforting himself with this assurance, Mr. Mantalini closed his eyes and
waited patiently till such time as he should wake up.
‘A very judicious arrangement,’ observed Ralph with a sneer, ‘if your
husband will keep within it, ma’am--as no doubt he will.’
‘Demmit!’ exclaimed Mr. Mantalini, opening his eyes at the sound of
Ralph’s voice, ‘it is a horrid reality. She is sitting there before me.
There is the graceful outline of her form; it cannot be mistaken--there
is nothing like it. The two countesses had no outlines at all, and the
dowager’s was a demd outline. Why is she so excruciatingly beautiful
that I cannot be angry with her, even now?’
‘You have brought it upon yourself, Alfred,’ returned Madame
Mantalini--still reproachfully, but in a softened tone.
‘I am a demd villain!’ cried Mr. Mantalini, smiting himself on the head.
‘I will fill my pockets with change for a sovereign in halfpence and
drown myself in the Thames; but I will not be angry with her, even then,
for I will put a note in the twopenny-post as I go along, to tell her
where the body is. She will be a lovely widow. I shall be a body. Some
handsome women will cry; she will laugh demnebly.’
‘Alfred, you cruel, cruel creature,’ said Madame Mantalini, sobbing at
the dreadful picture.
‘She calls me cruel--me--me--who for her sake will become a demd, damp,
moist, unpleasant body!’ exclaimed Mr. Mantalini.
‘You know it almost breaks my heart, even to hear you talk of such a
thing,’ replied Madame Mantalini.
‘Can I live to be mistrusted?’ cried her husband. ‘Have I cut my heart
into a demd extraordinary number of little pieces, and given them
all away, one after another, to the same little engrossing demnition
captivater, and can I live to be suspected by her? Demmit, no I can’t.’
‘Ask Mr. Nickleby whether the sum I have mentioned is not a proper one,’
reasoned Madame Mantalini.
‘I don’t want any sum,’ replied her disconsolate husband; ‘I shall
require no demd allowance. I will be a body.’
On this repetition of Mr. Mantalini’s fatal threat, Madame Mantalini
wrung her hands, and implored the interference of Ralph Nickleby; and
after a great quantity of tears and talking, and several attempts on
the part of Mr. Mantalini to reach the door, preparatory to straightway
committing violence upon himself, that gentleman was prevailed upon,
with difficulty, to promise that he wouldn’t be a body. This great point
attained, Madame Mantalini argued the question of the allowance, and Mr
Mantalini did the same, taking occasion to show that he could live with
uncommon satisfaction upon bread and water, and go clad in rags, but
that he could not support existence with the additional burden of
being mistrusted by the object of his most devoted and disinterested
affection. This brought fresh tears into Madame Mantalini’s eyes, which
having just begun to open to some few of the demerits of Mr. Mantalini,
were only open a very little way, and could be easily closed again. The
result was, that without quite giving up the allowance question, Madame
Mantalini, postponed its further consideration; and Ralph saw, clearly
enough, that Mr. Mantalini had gained a fresh lease of his easy life, and
that, for some time longer at all events, his degradation and downfall
were postponed.
‘But it will come soon enough,’ thought Ralph; ‘all love--bah! that I
should use the cant of boys and girls--is fleeting enough; though that
which has its sole root in the admiration of a whiskered face like that
of yonder baboon, perhaps lasts the longest, as it originates in the
greater blindness and is fed by vanity. Meantime the fools bring grist
to my mill, so let them live out their day, and the longer it is, the
better.’
These agreeable reflections occurred to Ralph Nickleby, as sundry small
caresses and endearments, supposed to be unseen, were exchanged between
the objects of his thoughts.
‘If you have nothing more to say, my dear, to Mr. Nickleby,’ said Madame
Mantalini, ‘we will take our leaves. I am sure we have detained him much
too long already.’
Mr. Mantalini answered, in the first instance, by tapping Madame
Mantalini several times on the nose, and then, by remarking in words
that he had nothing more to say.
‘Demmit! I have, though,’ he added almost immediately, drawing Ralph
into a corner. ‘Here’s an affair about your friend Sir Mulberry. Such a
demd extraordinary out-of-the-way kind of thing as never was--eh?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Ralph.
‘Don’t you know, demmit?’ asked Mr. Mantalini.
‘I see by the paper that he was thrown from his cabriolet last night,
and severely injured, and that his life is in some danger,’ answered
Ralph with great composure; ‘but I see nothing extraordinary in
that--accidents are not miraculous events, when men live hard, and drive
after dinner.’
‘Whew!’ cried Mr. Mantalini in a long shrill whistle. ‘Then don’t you
know how it was?’
‘Not unless it was as I have just supposed,’ replied Ralph, shrugging
his shoulders carelessly, as if to give his questioner to understand
that he had no curiosity upon the subject.
‘Demmit, you amaze me,’ cried Mantalini.
Ralph shrugged his shoulders again, as if it were no great feat to amaze
Mr. Mantalini, and cast a wistful glance at the face of Newman Noggs,
which had several times appeared behind a couple of panes of glass in
the room door; it being a part of Newman’s duty, when unimportant people
called, to make various feints of supposing that the bell had rung for
him to show them out: by way of a gentle hint to such visitors that it
was time to go.
‘Don’t you know,’ said Mr. Mantalini, taking Ralph by the button, ‘that
it wasn’t an accident at all, but a demd, furious, manslaughtering
attack made upon him by your nephew?’
‘What!’ snarled Ralph, clenching his fists and turning a livid white.
‘Demmit, Nickleby, you’re as great a tiger as he is,’ said Mantalini,
alarmed at these demonstrations.
‘Go on,’ cried Ralph. ‘Tell me what you mean. What is this story? Who
told you? Speak,’ growled Ralph. ‘Do you hear me?’
‘’Gad, Nickleby,’ said Mr. Mantalini, retreating towards his wife, ‘what
a demneble fierce old evil genius you are! You’re enough to frighten the
life and soul out of her little delicious wits--flying all at once into
such a blazing, ravaging, raging passion as never was, demmit!’
‘Pshaw,’ rejoined Ralph, forcing a smile. ‘It is but manner.’
‘It is a demd uncomfortable, private-madhouse-sort of a manner,’ said Mr
Mantalini, picking up his cane.
Ralph affected to smile, and once more inquired from whom Mr. Mantalini
had derived his information.
‘From Pyke; and a demd, fine, pleasant, gentlemanly dog it is,’ replied
Mantalini. ‘Demnition pleasant, and a tip-top sawyer.’
‘And what said he?’ asked Ralph, knitting his brows.
‘That it happened this way--that your nephew met him at a coffeehouse,
fell upon him with the most demneble ferocity, followed him to his cab,
swore he would ride home with him, if he rode upon the horse’s back or
hooked himself on to the horse’s tail; smashed his countenance, which
is a demd fine countenance in its natural state; frightened the horse,
pitched out Sir Mulberry and himself, and--’
‘And was killed?’ interposed Ralph with gleaming eyes. ‘Was he? Is he
dead?’
Mantalini shook his head.
‘Ugh,’ said Ralph, turning away. ‘Then he has done nothing. Stay,’
he added, looking round again. ‘He broke a leg or an arm, or put his
shoulder out, or fractured his collar-bone, or ground a rib or two? His
neck was saved for the halter, but he got some painful and slow-healing
injury for his trouble? Did he? You must have heard that, at least.’
‘No,’ rejoined Mantalini, shaking his head again. ‘Unless he was dashed
into such little pieces that they blew away, he wasn’t hurt, for he went
off as quiet and comfortable as--as--as demnition,’ said Mr. Mantalini,
rather at a loss for a simile.
‘And what,’ said Ralph, hesitating a little, ‘what was the cause of
quarrel?’
‘You are the demdest, knowing hand,’ replied Mr. Mantalini, in an
admiring tone, ‘the cunningest, rummest, superlativest old fox--oh
dem!--to pretend now not to know that it was the little bright-eyed
niece--the softest, sweetest, prettiest--’
‘Alfred!’ interposed Madame Mantalini.
‘She is always right,’ rejoined Mr. Mantalini soothingly, ‘and when she
says it is time to go, it is time, and go she shall; and when she walks
along the streets with her own tulip, the women shall say, with envy,
she has got a demd fine husband; and the men shall say with rapture,
he has got a demd fine wife; and they shall both be right and neither
wrong, upon my life and soul--oh demmit!’
With which remarks, and many more, no less intellectual and to the
purpose, Mr. Mantalini kissed the fingers of his gloves to Ralph
Nickleby, and drawing his lady’s arm through his, led her mincingly
away.
‘So, so,’ muttered Ralph, dropping into his chair; ‘this devil is loose
again, and thwarting me, as he was born to do, at every turn. He told
me once there should be a day of reckoning between us, sooner or later.
I’ll make him a true prophet, for it shall surely come.’
‘Are you at home?’ asked Newman, suddenly popping in his head.
‘No,’ replied Ralph, with equal abruptness.
Newman withdrew his head, but thrust it in again.
‘You’re quite sure you’re not at home, are you?’ said Newman.
‘What does the idiot mean?’ cried Ralph, testily.
‘He has been waiting nearly ever since they first came in, and may have
heard your voice--that’s all,’ said Newman, rubbing his hands.
‘Who has?’ demanded Ralph, wrought by the intelligence he had just
heard, and his clerk’s provoking coolness, to an intense pitch of
irritation.
The necessity of a reply was superseded by the unlooked-for entrance
of a third party--the individual in question--who, bringing his one
eye (for he had but one) to bear on Ralph Nickleby, made a great many
shambling bows, and sat himself down in an armchair, with his hands on
his knees, and his short black trousers drawn up so high in the legs by
the exertion of seating himself, that they scarcely reached below the
tops of his Wellington boots.
‘Why, this IS a surprise!’ said Ralph, bending his gaze upon the
visitor, and half smiling as he scrutinised him attentively; ‘I should
know your face, Mr. Squeers.’
‘Ah!’ replied that worthy, ‘and you’d have know’d it better, sir, if
it hadn’t been for all that I’ve been a-going through. Just lift that
little boy off the tall stool in the back-office, and tell him to come
in here, will you, my man?’ said Squeers, addressing himself to Newman.
‘Oh, he’s lifted his-self off. My son, sir, little Wackford. What do you
think of him, sir, for a specimen of the Dotheboys Hall feeding? Ain’t
he fit to bust out of his clothes, and start the seams, and make the
very buttons fly off with his fatness? Here’s flesh!’ cried Squeers,
turning the boy about, and indenting the plumpest parts of his figure
with divers pokes and punches, to the great discomposure of his son
and heir. ‘Here’s firmness, here’s solidness! Why you can hardly get up
enough of him between your finger and thumb to pinch him anywheres.’
In however good condition Master Squeers might have been, he certainly
did not present this remarkable compactness of person, for on his
father’s closing his finger and thumb in illustration of his remark,
he uttered a sharp cry, and rubbed the place in the most natural manner
possible.
‘Well,’ remarked Squeers, a little disconcerted, ‘I had him there; but
that’s because we breakfasted early this morning, and he hasn’t had his
lunch yet. Why you couldn’t shut a bit of him in a door, when he’s had
his dinner. Look at them tears, sir,’ said Squeers, with a triumphant
air, as Master Wackford wiped his eyes with the cuff of his jacket,
‘there’s oiliness!’
‘He looks well, indeed,’ returned Ralph, who, for some purposes of his
own, seemed desirous to conciliate the schoolmaster. ‘But how is Mrs
Squeers, and how are you?’
‘Mrs. Squeers, sir,’ replied the proprietor of Dotheboys, ‘is as she
always is--a mother to them lads, and a blessing, and a comfort, and
a joy to all them as knows her. One of our boys--gorging his-self with
vittles, and then turning in; that’s their way--got a abscess on him
last week. To see how she operated upon him with a pen-knife! Oh Lor!’
said Squeers, heaving a sigh, and nodding his head a great many times,
‘what a member of society that woman is!’
Mr. Squeers indulged in a retrospective look, for some quarter of a
minute, as if this allusion to his lady’s excellences had naturally
led his mind to the peaceful village of Dotheboys near Greta Bridge
in Yorkshire; and then looked at Ralph, as if waiting for him to say
something.
‘Have you quite recovered that scoundrel’s attack?’ asked Ralph.
‘I’ve only just done it, if I’ve done it now,’ replied Squeers. ‘I was
one blessed bruise, sir,’ said Squeers, touching first the roots of his
hair, and then the toes of his boots, ‘from HERE to THERE. Vinegar and
brown paper, vinegar and brown paper, from morning to night. I suppose
there was a matter of half a ream of brown paper stuck upon me, from
first to last. As I laid all of a heap in our kitchen, plastered all
over, you might have thought I was a large brown-paper parcel, chock
full of nothing but groans. Did I groan loud, Wackford, or did I groan
soft?’ asked Mr. Squeers, appealing to his son.
‘Loud,’ replied Wackford.
‘Was the boys sorry to see me in such a dreadful condition, Wackford, or
was they glad?’ asked Mr. Squeers, in a sentimental manner.
‘Gl--’
‘Eh?’ cried Squeers, turning sharp round.
‘Sorry,’ rejoined his son.
‘Oh!’ said Squeers, catching him a smart box on the ear. ‘Then take
your hands out of your pockets, and don’t stammer when you’re asked a
question. Hold your noise, sir, in a gentleman’s office, or I’ll run
away from my family and never come back any more; and then what would
become of all them precious and forlorn lads as would be let loose on
the world, without their best friend at their elbers?’
‘Were you obliged to have medical attendance?’ inquired Ralph.
‘Ay, was I,’ rejoined Squeers, ‘and a precious bill the medical
attendant brought in too; but I paid it though.’
Ralph elevated his eyebrows in a manner which might be expressive of
either sympathy or astonishment--just as the beholder was pleased to
take it.
‘Yes, I paid it, every farthing,’ replied Squeers, who seemed to know
the man he had to deal with, too well to suppose that any blinking of
the question would induce him to subscribe towards the expenses; ‘I
wasn’t out of pocket by it after all, either.’
‘No!’ said Ralph.
‘Not a halfpenny,’ replied Squeers. ‘The fact is, we have only one extra
with our boys, and that is for doctors when required--and not then,
unless we’re sure of our customers. Do you see?’
‘I understand,’ said Ralph.
‘Very good,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘Then, after my bill was run up, we
picked out five little boys (sons of small tradesmen, as was sure pay)
that had never had the scarlet fever, and we sent one to a cottage where
they’d got it, and he took it, and then we put the four others to sleep
with him, and THEY took it, and then the doctor came and attended ‘em
once all round, and we divided my total among ‘em, and added it on to
their little bills, and the parents paid it. Ha! ha! ha!’
‘And a good plan too,’ said Ralph, eyeing the schoolmaster stealthily.
‘I believe you,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘We always do it. Why, when Mrs
Squeers was brought to bed with little Wackford here, we ran the
hooping-cough through half-a-dozen boys, and charged her expenses among
‘em, monthly nurse included. Ha! ha! ha!’
Ralph never laughed, but on this occasion he produced the nearest
approach to it that he could, and waiting until Mr. Squeers had enjoyed
the professional joke to his heart’s content, inquired what had brought
him to town.
‘Some bothering law business,’ replied Squeers, scratching his head,
‘connected with an action, for what they call neglect of a boy. I don’t
know what they would have. He had as good grazing, that boy had, as
there is about us.’
Ralph looked as if he did not quite understand the observation.
‘Grazing,’ said Squeers, raising his voice, under the impression that as
Ralph failed to comprehend him, he must be deaf. ‘When a boy gets weak
and ill and don’t relish his meals, we give him a change of diet--turn
him out, for an hour or so every day, into a neighbour’s turnip field,
or sometimes, if it’s a delicate case, a turnip field and a piece of
carrots alternately, and let him eat as many as he likes. There an’t
better land in the country than this perwerse lad grazed on, and yet he
goes and catches cold and indigestion and what not, and then his friends
brings a lawsuit against ME! Now, you’d hardly suppose,’ added Squeers,
moving in his chair with the impatience of an ill-used man, ‘that
people’s ingratitude would carry them quite as far as that; would you?’
‘A hard case, indeed,’ observed Ralph.
‘You don’t say more than the truth when you say that,’ replied Squeers.
‘I don’t suppose there’s a man going, as possesses the fondness for
youth that I do. There’s youth to the amount of eight hundred pound a
year at Dotheboys Hall at this present time. I’d take sixteen hundred
pound worth if I could get ‘em, and be as fond of every individual
twenty pound among ‘em as nothing should equal it!’
‘Are you stopping at your old quarters?’ asked Ralph.
‘Yes, we are at the Saracen,’ replied Squeers, ‘and as it don’t want
very long to the end of the half-year, we shall continney to stop there
till I’ve collected the money, and some new boys too, I hope. I’ve
brought little Wackford up, on purpose to show to parents and
guardians. I shall put him in the advertisement, this time. Look at that
boy--himself a pupil. Why he’s a miracle of high feeding, that boy is!’
‘I should like to have a word with you,’ said Ralph, who had both
spoken and listened mechanically for some time, and seemed to have been
thinking.
‘As many words as you like, sir,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘Wackford, you go
and play in the back office, and don’t move about too much or you’ll get
thin, and that won’t do. You haven’t got such a thing as twopence, Mr
Nickleby, have you?’ said Squeers, rattling a bunch of keys in his coat
pocket, and muttering something about its being all silver.
‘I--think I have,’ said Ralph, very slowly, and producing, after much
rummaging in an old drawer, a penny, a halfpenny, and two farthings.
‘Thankee,’ said Squeers, bestowing it upon his son. ‘Here! You go and
buy a tart--Mr. Nickleby’s man will show you where--and mind you buy a
rich one. Pastry,’ added Squeers, closing the door on Master Wackford,
‘makes his flesh shine a good deal, and parents thinks that a healthy
sign.’
With this explanation, and a peculiarly knowing look to eke it out,
Mr. Squeers moved his chair so as to bring himself opposite to Ralph
Nickleby at no great distance off; and having planted it to his entire
satisfaction, sat down.
‘Attend to me,’ said Ralph, bending forward a little.
Squeers nodded.
‘I am not to suppose,’ said Ralph, ‘that you are dolt enough to forgive
or forget, very readily, the violence that was committed upon you, or
the exposure which accompanied it?’
‘Devil a bit,’ replied Squeers, tartly.
‘Or to lose an opportunity of repaying it with interest, if you could
get one?’ said Ralph.
‘Show me one, and try,’ rejoined Squeers.
‘Some such object it was, that induced you to call on me?’ said Ralph,
raising his eyes to the schoolmaster’s face.
‘N-n-no, I don’t know that,’ replied Squeers. ‘I thought that if it
was in your power to make me, besides the trifle of money you sent, any
compensation--’
‘Ah!’ cried Ralph, interrupting him. ‘You needn’t go on.’
After a long pause, during which Ralph appeared absorbed in
contemplation, he again broke silence by asking:
‘Who is this boy that he took with him?’
Squeers stated his name.
‘Was he young or old, healthy or sickly, tractable or rebellious? Speak
out, man,’ retorted Ralph.
‘Why, he wasn’t young,’ answered Squeers; ‘that is, not young for a boy,
you know.’
‘That is, he was not a boy at all, I suppose?’ interrupted Ralph.
‘Well,’ returned Squeers, briskly, as if he felt relieved by the
suggestion, ‘he might have been nigh twenty. He wouldn’t seem so old,
though, to them as didn’t know him, for he was a little wanting here,’
touching his forehead; ‘nobody at home, you know, if you knocked ever so
often.’
‘And you DID knock pretty often, I dare say?’ muttered Ralph.
‘Pretty well,’ returned Squeers with a grin.
‘When you wrote to acknowledge the receipt of this trifle of money as
you call it,’ said Ralph, ‘you told me his friends had deserted him long
ago, and that you had not the faintest clue or trace to tell you who he
was. Is that the truth?’
‘It is, worse luck!’ replied Squeers, becoming more and more easy and
familiar in his manner, as Ralph pursued his inquiries with the less
reserve. ‘It’s fourteen years ago, by the entry in my book, since a
strange man brought him to my place, one autumn night, and left him
there; paying five pound five, for his first quarter in advance. He
might have been five or six year old at that time--not more.’
‘What more do you know about him?’ demanded Ralph.
‘Devilish little, I’m sorry to say,’ replied Squeers. ‘The money was
paid for some six or eight year, and then it stopped. He had given an
address in London, had this chap; but when it came to the point, of
course nobody knowed anything about him. So I kept the lad out of--out
of--’
‘Charity?’ suggested Ralph drily.
‘Charity, to be sure,’ returned Squeers, rubbing his knees, ‘and when he
begins to be useful in a certain sort of way, this young scoundrel of
a Nickleby comes and carries him off. But the most vexatious and
aggeravating part of the whole affair is,’ said Squeers, dropping his
voice, and drawing his chair still closer to Ralph, ‘that some questions
have been asked about him at last--not of me, but, in a roundabout kind
of way, of people in our village. So, that just when I might have had
all arrears paid up, perhaps, and perhaps--who knows? such things have
happened in our business before--a present besides for putting him out
to a farmer, or sending him to sea, so that he might never turn up to
disgrace his parents, supposing him to be a natural boy, as many of our
boys are--damme, if that villain of a Nickleby don’t collar him in open
day, and commit as good as highway robbery upon my pocket.’
‘We will both cry quits with him before long,’ said Ralph, laying his
hand on the arm of the Yorkshire schoolmaster.
‘Quits!’ echoed Squeers. ‘Ah! and I should like to leave a small balance
in his favour, to be settled when he can. I only wish Mrs. Squeers could
catch hold of him. Bless her heart! She’d murder him, Mr. Nickleby--she
would, as soon as eat her dinner.’
‘We will talk of this again,’ said Ralph. ‘I must have time to think of
it. To wound him through his own affections and fancies--. If I could
strike him through this boy--’
‘Strike him how you like, sir,’ interrupted Squeers, ‘only hit him hard
enough, that’s all--and with that, I’ll say good-morning. Here!--just
chuck that little boy’s hat off that corner peg, and lift him off the
stool will you?’
Bawling these requests to Newman Noggs, Mr. Squeers betook himself to the
little back-office, and fitted on his child’s hat with parental anxiety,
while Newman, with his pen behind his ear, sat, stiff and immovable, on
his stool, regarding the father and son by turns with a broad stare.
‘He’s a fine boy, an’t he?’ said Squeers, throwing his head a little
on one side, and falling back to the desk, the better to estimate the
proportions of little Wackford.
‘Very,’ said Newman.
‘Pretty well swelled out, an’t he?’ pursued Squeers. ‘He has the fatness
of twenty boys, he has.’
‘Ah!’ replied Newman, suddenly thrusting his face into that of Squeers,
‘he has;--the fatness of twenty!--more! He’s got it all. God help that
others. Ha! ha! Oh Lord!’
Having uttered these fragmentary observations, Newman dropped upon his
desk and began to write with most marvellous rapidity.
‘Why, what does the man mean?’ cried Squeers, colouring. ‘Is he drunk?’
Newman made no reply.
‘Is he mad?’ said Squeers.
But, still Newman betrayed no consciousness of any presence save his
own; so, Mr. Squeers comforted himself by saying that he was both drunk
AND mad; and, with this parting observation, he led his hopeful son
away.
In exact proportion as Ralph Nickleby became conscious of a struggling
and lingering regard for Kate, had his detestation of Nicholas
augmented. It might be, that to atone for the weakness of inclining to
any one person, he held it necessary to hate some other more intensely
than before; but such had been the course of his feelings. And now,
to be defied and spurned, to be held up to her in the worst and most
repulsive colours, to know that she was taught to hate and despise
him: to feel that there was infection in his touch, and taint in his
companionship--to know all this, and to know that the mover of it all
was that same boyish poor relation who had twitted him in their very
first interview, and openly bearded and braved him since, wrought his
quiet and stealthy malignity to such a pitch, that there was scarcely
anything he would not have hazarded to gratify it, if he could have seen
his way to some immediate retaliation.
But, fortunately for Nicholas, Ralph Nickleby did not; and although he
cast about all that day, and kept a corner of his brain working on the
one anxious subject through all the round of schemes and business that
came with it, night found him at last, still harping on the same theme,
and still pursuing the same unprofitable reflections.
‘When my brother was such as he,’ said Ralph, ‘the first comparisons
were drawn between us--always in my disfavour. HE was open, liberal,
gallant, gay; I a crafty hunks of cold and stagnant blood, with no
passion but love of saving, and no spirit beyond a thirst for gain. I
recollected it well when I first saw this whipster; but I remember it
better now.’
He had been occupied in tearing Nicholas’s letter into atoms; and as he
spoke, he scattered it in a tiny shower about him.
‘Recollections like these,’ pursued Ralph, with a bitter smile, ‘flock
upon me--when I resign myself to them--in crowds, and from countless
quarters. As a portion of the world affect to despise the power of
money, I must try and show them what it is.’
And being, by this time, in a pleasant frame of mind for slumber, Ralph
Nickleby went to bed.